Birthday Resolution

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Wow, where did October go? A whole month and not one post! Must admit to being a tad remiss, although being stuck in a rut of writer’s block didn’t help. The month started with a weekend trip to Cardiff. Ostensibly this was for a Phonics concert at the Castle, however I also managed to squeeze in some Dr Who/Torchwood sight-seeing (yes, I am a geek). Being a Scorpi-orpi-orpio Girl the month ended with my birthday. As I’ve got older I tend to spend at least part of that day navel gazing: reflecting on what I’ve done, what I haven’t done and what I need or want to do in the upcoming year. It’s also one of those times when I add to, delete from and amend my “101 Things to Do” list. Anyway, one of this year’s resolutions, and high up on my list, was to lose the extra weight that I had gained while at Uni and haven’t managed to lose yet.

There are a few (and at least for me) inaccurate stereotypes about women and weight out there. If one were to believe the vast majority of media on the subject you would think womankind highly insecure and paranoid about their weight (as with their overall appearance). This maybe true for some, but not me – and I feel that it’s important that I state that straight up, before anyone gets the wrong impression. Despite the predominance of this media I do not feel compelled in any way to feel any guilt about my body. My decision was based on the fact that, right now, I weigh more than I should and that I’m nowhere near as fit as I’d like to be (which in all honesty irks me more than the weight).

A quick blast on the calculator revealed that I’ve actually lost a fair bit of the weight already (nigh on half). However, I have been stuck on a plateau with my current weight for a while now. This I find frustrating. And I don’t like to be frustrated. Especially when it concerns an issue that I can exert some control over and so can, in theory, fix. Therefore on Monday I decided to fix this issue once and for all.

Having made this resolution I realised there were certain factors that both helped and hindered this decision.Helpful factors: when it comes to what I eat, I’m not too bad with my diet (I wouldn’t say that it’s great, but that can be worked on). And since diet is half of the successful formula for weight loss and general health & fitness (exercise being the other) I count this as a positive.Unhelpful factors: right now joining a gym is out of the question. This is a definite negative as I love the gym and it’s where I’ve had the best success in the past. However, I soon realised that this dark cloud of a problem has a silver lining. Another item on my “101 Things to Do” list is to start running, initially with the aim of getting fit, but ultimately with the aim of completing a marathon (actually, there are more reasons, but that’s another post). So now I am presented with a situation where I can cross one item off my list, while contributing to another. Excellent.

So far this week the only set back (and it’s a corker) has been getting up early enough to go for a run (I prefer to work out in the morning, evenings are a no-go for me and exercise). Waking up at the right time hasn’t been a problem: the problem has been staying awake long enough to actually get out of bed! My alarm goes off, some sleepy part of my consciousness hears it and the only physical thing I bring myself to do is switch it off. Not helpful. To compensate (and prevent the day from being a total right-off exercise wise) I’ve completed a Pilates routine instead. Today I added a 3.5 mile round-walk to the Pilates, although no running occurred. However, I am hopeful for some success tomorrow (even after a late-nighter so I can watch True Blood). I’m also hopeful that ultimately I’ll be able to write a ‘mission completed’ post on this subject in the future – watch this space.

The Cloud

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What is RSS?

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a way of keeping track of the different blogs and websites that you follow. It’s much like a bookmark – a magical bookmark that does all the work for you. RSS automatically updates and feeds all your different sites into a RRS Reader, making the process of keeping up-to-date with these sites much easier. There are web-based RSS Readers and desktop-based RSS Readers. To subscribe to a site look for an orange icon in the browser address bar or on the site itself (mine is just above).